Just an FYI, Planet Earth – I swear in this article. A lot. It’s 2015, and it’s the way I talk. Moving on.Second FYI – do you have a story about an audience member being a dumbass douchebag? Post it in the comments for all of us to revel with you!

Audience Douchebaggery has been rampant this season in all facets of Entertainment. I have noticed quite a few news stories lately of paying audience members at myriad events acting like a large sack of douchebags and destroying shit that doesn’t belong to them. Have you seen the videos of these assholes? This is amazing stuff; I am truly shocked at the balls on these people. If you don’t like my language right now, you’re not going to like it soon, so maybe this is a good time for you to piss off.

Exhibit A:
Douchebag Jumps Onto Stage While Zoogma is Playing at Camp Bisco and Smashes Over a Pile of Expensive Gear

Yep, that’s Ryan Null from the band Zoogma, and some asshole smashing into him and his rig after climbing past the barrier security. I have no clue what came into this douchebag’s head as he started bee-lining past the guy with the camera and up onto the stage, but pal, you’re pretty lucky those guys didn’t beat the plain brown shit right out of you. Seriously dude, you’re a lucky guy. You also probably destroyed some gear in that little stunt, or at least damaged it pretty well, which the rest of the audience will be paying for next time there is a show we want tickets for, because someone is going to have to shoulder the extra security and new insurance the promoters and band will have to carry because of your stupid ass. Did you see how Ryan tossed down his fucking bass in complete shock of what you had done to his rig? You’re seriously lucky to still have teeth. Next.

That was in the world of Concert Production, now let’s move on to Theatre — where it seems nobody has a single fuck left to give about Theatre Etiquette.

Exhibit B:
Moron Plugs His Cell Phone Into the Outlet ON STAGE in a Theatre, Proving Twice He Could Give A Shit About Everyone Else’s Experience

That was 19-year old Nick Silvestri, climbing up onstage to charge his fucking cell phone. When the ushers and support staff rushed down to see what the ignorant douchebag was doing, he said “well, where can I charge it?”

“I downed a few drinks, and I think that clearly impaired my judgment,” said Nick Silvestri, a 19-year-old from Long Island. “I guess I wasn’t really thinking.”

Totally true, you were not thinking. Even worse, you were thinking about charging your cell phone up so you could be on the fucking thing the entire show, posting photos to your friends of shit you shouldn’t be filming anyway because you don’t have the rights to do so and generally blowing the experience for everyone else around you. This is why you leave your cell phone in your pocket and enjoy the show you just paid for. I suppose you could argue that you paid for your ticket and you can do whatever you want, but you’d be wrong — not only did you pay for yours, but all of the people around you did too, and now they have to stare through your dumbass screen-lit head the whole show. That’s why we announce things like this at the top of the show. It’s not FOR you, it’s BECAUSE OF YOU.

From an article at New York Daily News:

“I would like to sincerely apologize,” he said. “I am on my college lacrosse team, and I know just how bad it feels when you are out there working your ass off, and it feels like the crowd isn’t on your side or isn’t paying attention. I feel terrible if any of the amazing actors in this show felt at all disrespected by my actions.”

Initially, Silvestri was unrepentant, telling Playbill on Thursday that he didn’t see the big deal.

“Hey, I’m sorry if I delayed your show five minutes. But you got a lot of attention from this, so maybe I made your show a little better (known),” Silvestri told Playbill.

He had said he only sought to charge the iPhone 6 because it was dying after a full day of fielding calls from “girls…calling all day.”

So when he saw the plug on the set of the Robert Askin comedy hit, he did what any self-respecting teenager would do: he climbed onstage to charge the device.

“I saw the outlet and ran for it,” he told Playbill. “That was the only outlet I saw, so I thought, ‘Why not?’ I was thinking that they were probably going to plug something in there on the set, and I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal if my phone was up there too.”

We appreciate the apology, but the best way to not have to give an apology is to remove your head from your ass and fit in with society. Next.

The actual outlet on the set of Hand to God, courtesy of Broadway Adjacent http://broadwayadjacent.com/exclusive-the-handtogod-on-set-outlet/

I think letting Patti LuPone tell it in her own words might be best here – to generalize, she grabbed the cell phone of a woman who was texting during the entire second act, and kept that mopho until after the show, when she gave it back to the House Manager and asked him to make the patron feel like an ass.

Patti?

“We work hard on stage to create a world that is being totally destroyed by a few, rude, self-absorbed and inconsiderate audience members who are controlled by their phones. They cannot put them down. When a phone goes off or when a LED screen can be seen in the dark it ruins the experience for everyone else – the majority of the audience at that performance and the actors on stage. I am so defeated by this issue that I seriously question whether I want to work on stage anymore. Now I’m putting battle gear on over my costume to marshall the audience as well as perform.”

Patti LuPone is Patti LuPone and when she does something, she’s Patti LuPone-ing the hell out of it, and when you go to see her do something, you’re seeing live, practiced, seasoned, tried and true art. Pay closer attention, you might be at a show staring at your phone and you may miss something that could change your life. That’s why you decided to go to the show in the first fucking place, right? That’s why we do this “Entertainment” stuff for you, it’s to try and change your life. Seriously. We do this as hard as any other dedicated people to their craft, and we don’t think it’s generally that funny to see you fuck up other people’s experiences.

People, there is a way to behave at shows that is different than your home. You can act like a rude pig trashball at home all you want, but when you have to interact with society at an event meant to celebrate a piece of art, even if that piece of art is happening in the middle of 15,000 people or more at an arena, you have to keep your inner sow in check. It’s serious, you’re ruining what is literally an investment for a large majority of people at these shows – have you seen concert ticket prices lately?! Let me just say that it’s the people who make the lowest comparative wages at these shows that you’re screwing over when you do stupid shit, it’s not the artists who suffer, it’s the stagehands, the designers, the people who have to clean up after your idiocy, and the security folk who have to try to secure everyone else FROM you while you’re doing stupid shit. Just keep that in mind next time you’re thinking it’d be cool to get yourself on Tosh.0 or World Star Hip Hop, some place where human ignorance is put on display like a zoo of idiots.

Here’s a couple of great fucking links to some excellent fucking blogs in the Theatre world, I highly, highly recommend making them daily stops. I know I do!

Broadway Adjacent — this is an excellent blog and if you’re in Theatre, read that shit every day.

And a special treat — since you stuck in this long and put up with all my swearing, here’s a 2009 recording of Patti LuPone dealing with yet another douchebag taking photos of her during Gypsy, right in the theatre. Ready?

I wonder if that title is clear enough? Here’a a great video of one of those $800 Lego Star Wars destroyer thingsdropped from a lift by some great nerds who had a circular camera dolly rig set up just to film that said $800 worth of Lego destruction.

(I looked and could only find one of those bad puppies for $1500. FUCK. That’s a lot of Legos.)

This might be the most ridiculous thing I have seen this year so far — and I have seen some fucked up shit this year!

This is the video for Chinese rock band Wang Rong Rollin, and their song “Chick Chick,” which I think is about some type of hair product… or some kind of gel-based lingerie set… or maybe it’s about chickens that at one time had applied for Harvard, only to find out that they hadn’t scored terribly well on the SATs. Honestly, I have no earthly fucking idea what this is, but someone who shall remain nameless TOBIN sent this to me and it must be shared with the insanity of the population of people of light. Enjoy, crazy people.

I personally have never seen Carry On My Wayward Son played with this much enthusiasm, um, ever. Not even at karaoke nights. Maaaaybe not even ever at karaoke nights back when I used to drink a lot, and those were some crazy nights.

I found this on Dangerous Minds, and this is too awesome not to share (check out Dangerous Minds — one of my favorite blogs!):

A few online sources mention that years later, in the ‘90s, Walsh was supposedly arrested for possession and threatened with jail time. We also know from this 700 Club interview that guitarist Kerry Livgren and bassist Dave Hope were seriously addicted until they “found God.” In that particular interview, Hope admits to having spent $40,000 (in 1980 dollars!) on cocaine the year before his Christian rebirth. We can only guess what the differences would be between Dave Hope’s and Steve Walsh’s level of commitment to the white lady, but this performance seems to indicate Walsh was in imminent danger of flying off the stage and into the stratosphere at any second.

You see, as I have heard many times before…Cocaine makes you a brand new man! The problem then becomes that the brand new man then wants some cocaine.

I love programming product videos. It is the ultimate challenge of programming specificity.

Enjoy this one, Todd Murray the video director badass was the cinematographer, Mike Graham is the product manager badass who brought this thing to market, and I designed the lighting. It’s easy to rock when you get given such awesome fixtures to play with. This particular bit of awesomeness is the ROGUE RH1 Hybrid. Good work, Mikey!

This was one of the most fun interviews I’ve ever done, I had to share. Meet Jason Scoppa, creator of The Sayers Club LA and Las Vegas (at SLS Las Vegas) and Micah Otano, the technical ninja that makes Jason’s work all happen! Check it out!

Also, make sure to check out The Sayers Club Las Vegas, and The Sayers Club LA if you’re gonna be on the road and in those locations. Definitely worth the trip, they are two chill clubs. Leather couches everywhere!!

LDI reminds me that there are so many things I love and hate about this industry we call our home. I hate the hours; I love the payoff. I hate the exhaustion; I love the camaraderie that occurs between people that don’t normally play well with others. The one thing that I love more than any of it is the people of this business. The people make LDI for me, every single time we trek our rear ends to the desert for our industry’s prom.

I walked around taking as many “obligatory LDI selfies” as I could. I took a bunch near our booth, and yes Jaybles, some of these aren’t selfies. 😀

I missed seeing hundreds of people. This is the standard for LDI. Next year I’ll miss more hundreds of people. You have to make these shows focus on who you DO get to see! You’ll always see who you missed next year!